Buckling feature-driven optimization method for conformally modelled implicit curved stiffened structures

The growing need for robust, yet lightweight structures in aerospace and deep-sea exploration has emphasized the design of curved stiffened structures. This article introduces a method focused on maximizing the buckling loads of curved stiffened plates and shells, employing a buckling feature-driven optimization approach tailored for curved stiffened structures modeled conformally. The method proposes the ϵ-net enhanced adaptive marching squares (E-AMS) for the conformal modeling of these structures. A newly devised buckling characteristic function assesses the buckling behavior across different section parameters of curved stiffened layouts. This function systematically quantifies the local and global buckling characteristics in a dimensionless format, allowing for the separation of section parameters from layout parameters. A novel two-step optimization method is proposed to streamline the optimization process. This method broadens the design space to include configurations ranging from sparse to dense, enhancing the buckling load capacity by 5–20 % over traditional orthogonal configurations.